her than the offering of a gift
to a divinity.{33}

The whole subject of sacred animals is obscure, and in regard,
especially, to totemism--defined by Dr. Frazer{34} as "belief in the
kinship of certain families with certain species of animals" and
practices based upon that belief--the most divergent views are held by
scholars. The religious significance which some have seen in totemistic
customs is denied by others, while there is much disagreement as to the
probability of their having been widespread in Europe. Still, whatever
may be the truth about totemism, there is much that points to the
sometime existence in Europe of sacrifices that were not offerings, but
solemn feasts of communion in the flesh and blood of a worshipful
animal.{35} That the idea of sacrificial communion preceded the
sacrifice-gift is suggested by the fact that in many customs which appear
to be sacrificial survivals the body of the victim has some kind of
sacramental efficacy; it conveys a blessing to that which is brought into
contact with it. The actual eating and drinking of the flesh and blood is
the most perfect mode of contact, but the same end seems to have been
aimed at in such customs as the sprinkling of worshippers with blood, the
carrying of the victim in procession from house to house, the burying of
flesh in furrows to make the crops grow, and the wearing of hides, heads,
or horns of sacrificed beasts.{36} We shall meet, during the Christmas
season, with various practices that seem to have originated either in a
sacrificial feast or in some such sacramental rites as have just been
described. So peculiarly prominent are animal masks, apparently derived
from hide-, head-, and horn-wearing, that we may dwell upon them a little
at this point.

We have already seen how much trouble the Kalends custom of beast-masking
gave the ecclesiastics. Its probable origin is thus suggested by
Robertson Smith:--

"It is ... appropriate that the worshipper should dress himself in
|176| the skin of a victim, and so, as it were, envelop himself in
its sanctity. To rude nations dress is not merely a physical comfort,
but a fixed part of social religion, a thing by which a man
constantly bears on his body the token of his religion, and which is
itself a charm and a means of divine protection.... When the dress of
sacrificial skin, which at once declared a man's religion and his
sacred kindred, ceased to be used in ordi